Slavery in North America:

From the Colonial Period to Emancipation

From the founding of Jamestown to the American Civil War, slavery and abolition shaped American national, regional and racial identities. Even now, slavery and its legacy remains the most emotive and divisive aspect of US history.

This four-volume reset edition draws together rare sources relating to American slavery systems. The chronological spread of sources reveals changes in the material and intellectual underpinnings of slavery over time. Moreover, the arrangement of the sources reveal the geographical diversity of slavery across North America, and offer scholars access to the experience of a wide range of constituencies from slaves and slave-owners, through abolitionists and pro-slavery ideologues, to travellers and plantation visitors. The complicated role that slavery played in the ideological construction of Confederate nationhood is also explored. The texts included in this edition are rare and difficult-to-access or are transcribed from manuscripts for the first time.

The edition includes extensive editorial material including a general introduction, volume introductions, headnotes, endnotes and a consolidated index in the final volume. It will be vital for scholars of the History of Slavery, the History of Abolitionism and American History.

• Draws together a wide range of previously uncollected and rare sources
• Thirty-eight texts are reproduced in full
• Several manuscript sources are transcribed for the first time
• Full editorial apparatus includes a general introduction, volume introductions, headnotes and endnotes
• Consolidated index in the final volume

Contents

Volume 1: The Colonial Period
Editor: Timothy Lockley

Slavery and the Law
South Carolina slave laws, Thomas Cooper & David McCord, Statutes at Large of South Carolina (1836-41) (excerpt); Josiah Edward Smith papers (1774–5) (excerpts); James Barclay, The Voyages and Travels of James Barclay (1777) (excerpt)
Slave Resistance
Grand Jury Presentments from the South Carolina Gazette (1733–1775)
Religion and Slavery
Edmund Gibson, Two Letters of the Lord Bishop of London (1727); George Whitefield, Three Letters from the Reverend Mr G Whitefield: viz. Letter I. To a Friend in London, concerning Archbishop Tillotson. Letter II. To the Same, on the Same Subject. Letter III. To the Inhabitants of Maryland, Virginia, North and South-Carolina, Concerning their Negroes (1740) (excerpt); Alexander Garden, Six Letters to the Rev Mr George Whitefield. …The sixth, containing remarks on Mr Whitefield’s second letter, concerning Archbishop Tillotson, and on his Letter concerning the Negroes (1740) (excerpt); Anon [Anne Dutton], Letter to the Negroes lately converted to Christ in America (1743); Samuel Davies, Letters from the Rev Samuel Davies, and Others; shewing, the State of Religion in Virginia, South Carolina, &c. Particularly among the Negroes (1757)
Pro-slavery, Anti-Slavery, and the Revolutionary Impulse
John Saffin, A Brief and Candid Answer to a Late Printed Sheet entitled the Selling of Joseph (1701) (excerpt); An Account Shewing the Progress of the Colony of Georgia in America from its First Establishment (1741) (excerpt); Richard Nisbet, Slavery Not Forbidden by Scripture (1773); Account of the experiences of David Margate, a black British preacher employed by the Countess of Huntingdon to minister to her slaves at Bethesda in Georgia (1775) (manuscript); Account of the judicial lynching of Thomas Jeremiah (1775) (manuscript)

Volume 2: The Revolutionary and Early National Period
Editor: Timothy Lockley
Revolution, Resistance and Revolt
Trial records of three slaves (1790s) (manuscript); The Life and Confession of Cato: a Slave of Elijah Mount, of Charleston in the County of Montgomery, who was Executed at Johnstown, on the 22d day of April 1803, for the Murder of Mary Akins (1803); Diary of Edward Hooker (1805); Reports of the Historical MSS. Commission of the American Historical Association 1896 (1897) (excerpt)
The Anti-Slavery Impulse and Reaction to It
Rules for the Regulation of the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes, and Others, Unlawfully Held in Bondage. Instituted in Philadelphia in the year 1784. To which are prefixed, the Acts of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania, Respecting the Gradual Abolition of Slavery. Society for the Relief of Free Negroes, Unlawfully Held in Bondage (1784); Charles Crawford, Observations upon Negro Slavery (1790); Noah Webster, Effects of Slavery, on Morals and Industry (1793); Morgan J Rhees, Letters on Liberty and Slavery: In Answer to a Pamphlet, entitled, ‘Negro-Slavery Defended by the Word of God’ By Philanthropos (1798); Barnaby Nixon, A Serious Address to the Rulers of America, in General, and the State of Virginia, in Particular (1806)
The Slave Experience
Henry Holcombe, The First Fruits in a Series of Letters (1812) (excerpt); Digest of the Ordinances of the City Council of Charleston, from the Year 1783 to July 1818, To which are Annexed, Extracts from the Acts of the Legislature which Relate to the City of Charleston (1813) (excerpt); Jarvis Brewster, An Exposition of the Treatment of Slaves in the Southern States, particularly in the States of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina (1815)

Volume 3: The Antebellum Period
Editor: Jonathan Daniel Wells
Imagining, Managing, and Depicting Southern Slavery
Alexander Edwards, Ordinances of the City Council of Charleston (1802) (excerpt); Virginia Cary, Letter on Female Character, Addressed to a Young Lady, on the Death of her Mother (1828) (excerpt); G S, ‘Sketches of the South Santee’, American Monthly Magazine (1836); Foby, ‘Management of Servants’, Southern Cultivator (1853); ‘Songs of the Slave’, Lippincott’s Magazine (1868)
Slavery, Race, and Southern Intellectual Culture
William Thomas, ‘The Enemies of the Constitution Discovered’ (1835) (excerpt); William Cost Johnson, ‘Speech of William Cost Johnson, of Maryland, on the Subject of the Rejection of Petitions for the Abolition of Slavery’ (1840); Nathaniel Russell Middleton, ‘Address Delivered before the Chrestomathic Society of the College of Charleston’ (1849); Louisa McCord, ‘Negro and White Slavery’, Southern Quarterly Review (1851); Samuel Galloway, Ergonomy; or, Industrial Science (1853) (excerpt); L W Spratt, ‘Speech upon the Foreign Slave Trade’ (1858); H O R, The Governing Race: A Book for the Time, and for All Times (1860) (excerpt)
Religion and Slavery
George W Freeman, The Rights and Duties of Slave-Holders (1837); Henry C Wright, Duty of Abolitionists to Pro-Slavery Ministers and Churches (1841); John B Adger, The Religious Instruction of the Black Population: A Sermon Preached in Several of the Protestant Episcopal Churches in Charleston on Sundays in July 1847 (1847)
Slavery, Law, and Politics
Nathaniel Beverley Tucker, A Discourse on the Dangers that Threaten the Free Institutions of the United States (1841); Daniel Whitaker, ‘The Rights of the South’, Whitaker’s Magazine (1850); State v. Elias, Spartanburg District, Court of Magistrates and Freeholders, Trial Papers, Case 224, June 11, 1859 (manuscript)

Volume 4: The Civil War and Emancipation
Editor: Peter Carmichael
Slavery and Secession
Rev A Verot, Slavery & Abolitionism, being the Substance of a Sermon, Preached in the Church of St Augustine, Florida (1861); Addresses Delivered before the Virginia State Convention by Hon Fulton Anderson, Commissioner from Mississippi, Hon Henry L Benning, Commissioner from Georgia, and Hon John S Preston, Commissioner from South Carolina, February 1861 (1861); Commonwealth vs. Harriette Slave Property of B B Cooley & John W Cooley for Murder of Mrs Hetty A Cooley (1861) (manuscript)
Slavery and the Confederate experiment
Anon, ‘Ebony Idols’, The Richmond Enquirer (1861); Charlie Ward, ‘I’m Coming to My Dixie Home’; as Sung by Lincoln’s Intelligent Contrabands (1861); Anon, The Spirit of the South towards Northern Freemen and Soldiers Defending the American Flag Against Traitors of the Deepest Dye (1861); Anon, The Abolition of Slavery : The Right of the Government under the War Power (1861); Calvin H Wiley, Scriptural Views of National Trials (1863) (excerpt); J J D Renfroe, The Battle Is God’s’: A Sermon Preached Before Wilcox’s Brigade (1863); Court Martial of William Walker, United States Colored Troops (1864) (manuscript); Conscript Office, Richmond, Virginia: circular #40, June 1, 1864, authorizing impressments of slaves and free Negroes (1864)
Slavery Destroyed
James E Yeatman, A Report on the Condition of the Freedmen of the Mississippi, Presented to the Western Sanitary Commission, December 17th, 1863 (1864); James E Yeatman, Suggestions of a Plan of Organization for Freed Labor, and the Leasing of Plantations along the Mississippi (1864); Francis W Pickens, Letter of Hon Francis W Pickens, The Crops and Condition of the Country. Effects of Emancipation. The Different Races of Mankind (1866)

Related titles

• Slave Agriculture and Financial Markets in Antebellum America : The Bank of the United States in Mississippi, 1831–1852
• Slavery, Abolition and Emancipation : Writings in the British Romantic Period
• The British Transatlantic Slave Trade

Leaflets

• Slavery in North America: colour leaflet
• Slavery in North America: printable leaflet

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